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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26590852">not something that you put to bed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29'>Ro29</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Messing around in the Soft Wars Sandbox [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Brothers being assholes, Dred Priest is his own warning, Feeling Out of Place, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Light Angst, Misunderstandings, There is comfort!! I promise, a bit of, brothers being brothers, but nothing from that is brought up in much detail, happyish, or well</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:27:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,655</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26590852</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Neyo doesn't know when the last time he thought of himself as Edee was. </p><p>(or; a discussion between two brothers who were similar once.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CC-8826 | Neyo &amp; CC-1010 | Fox, Squad Edee (Soft Wars) - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Messing around in the Soft Wars Sandbox [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>185</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Open Source Soft Wars</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>not something that you put to bed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/gifts">SailorSol</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/gifts">Project0506</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is all Sol and Projie's fault so you can blame them for giving me Edee feels and then enabling me.</p><p>title is from the crane wives 'how to rest'</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The room is cold.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo lays on the floor, curled up behind the identical GAR-issued desks and bookshelves.</p><p> </p><p>His knee throbs, injured and not appreciating the position he’s forced it into. His comm chimes.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t check it.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a knock against the walls of the office, Neyo bites back a snarl. There is something to be said about cornered animals in that, Neyo doesn’t care much for it, he’s never been one for prettied up words.</p><p> </p><p>His words were always more the cutting kind. Though he thinks, in that hazy way one remembers childhood, maybe they weren’t always so sharp.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s my office jackass, if you really wanted to be left alone you would’ve found a better hiding spot.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo grunts, “Kark you, I’m not hiding.”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” the <em>vod</em> agrees, “You’re moping.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo scowls, doesn’t look at the door, “The room’s fucking cold, what did you do, dump coolant in the ventilation system?”</p><p> </p><p>There’s a snort, and then the sound of footsteps on the carpet, “Heater’s broken, and they aren’t going to fix it when we can get on fine without it.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo huffs, “Course not, that would require them to <em>care</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>There’s the sound of plastoid armour clicking together as the brother settles nearby and Neyo stares at the wall, scowling for half a second longer before sitting up. He doesn’t wince as his knee protests the change in position, he was trained too well for that.</p><p> </p><p>When he sits up he’s staring at his own face.</p><p> </p><p>Even after all these years, even after losing anything in him that made him Edee once, somehow, Neyo has still managed to keep some of that tubie-like similarity to Fox.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo smiles, vicious, “Are those grey hairs already <em>vod</em>? You getting to be an old man already?”</p><p> </p><p>Fox scowls, doesn’t rise to the bait, “You aren’t cute.”</p><p> </p><p>He twists, leans against the side of the desk, waves a hand in Fox’s direction, “I’m adorable.”</p><p> </p><p>Fox raises an eyebrow, tips his head back against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest, waiting.</p><p> </p><p>Deflections had never been the way to distract Fox.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo had forgotten that, somewhere between being three-cycles and now. It feels like something more significant than it should be.</p><p> </p><p>Fox was always too stubborn to let deflections keep him from what he wanted to know, too quick to catch on that something was being hidden.</p><p> </p><p>(It had been Gree, he thinks, who it had worked best on. Gree, who was smart and eager to learn and easily coerced into different paths of conversation by new information.)</p><p> </p><p>The silence is almost natural, could be natural even, if not for the thread of tension that is present and underscores every interaction Neyo has with any of Edee.</p><p> </p><p>He scowls, prickly with anxiety and knowing only one way to deal with it.</p><p> </p><p>If Priest had done nothing else, he’d molded Neyo into an effective weapon.</p><p> </p><p>(The problem there was always in remembering how to be a man as well. Neyo is not always good at that part, because that was never what Priest had wanted from his cadets.)</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t snap, because he has enough patience to outlast Fox in this, even with anxiety buzzing under his skin and self-pity nipping at him in a way he’s never been able to afford wallowing in. Priest had seen to that as well, had taught Neyo how to hold still and silent in attention for however long he needed to. Taught him to ignore the way joints locked and muscles spasmed, engrained that patience, that stillness, into his bones with punishment spars and working him until everything felt like lead and then working him some more.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe, Neyo thinks, the silence is getting to him, in the way silence only ever does when around an Edee. He’s never seen himself as introspective before.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t snap, but he shifts, gives his attention over, raises an eyebrow, lounges in a way that takes even more pressure off his knee and bleeds <em>‘relaxed’ </em>and ‘<em>in control’</em> from every line of his body.</p><p> </p><p>Fox snorts, rolls his eyes, leans forward in a way that leaves Neyo tense and leaning his weight to one side, prepped to roll out of the way.</p><p> </p><p>Fox taps the floor next to Neyo’s injured knee, doesn’t move to touch, doesn’t say anything, raises an eyebrow that says all it needs to.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo flicks a kark-you-kindly to him, taps two quick fingers to the side Fox has been favouring more the longer they sit on the floor.</p><p> </p><p>“Hypocrisy,” Neyo begins, voice falsely cheery and smile wide, “is not a good look on you little brother.”</p><p> </p><p>Fox snorts, “I’m currently the oldest out of all of us asshat. Bedsides,” he shrugs, leans back, “Wouldn’t have to employ it if Colt hadn’t sent me looking for you.”</p><p> </p><p>His comm chooses that moment to chime again.</p><p> </p><p>Fox holds his gaze, Neyo doesn’t look away, bares his teeth in another grin.</p><p> </p><p><em>Cornered animal</em>, Neyo thinks again, can’t remember the whole quote, not like Gree would, or Colt.</p><p> </p><p>Fox tilts his head, drums his fingers on the floor. Fox—this Fox, not the Fox that used to hide away in corners on Kamino and who argued with 6 that he and Neyo should be allowed to share a pod, the Fox that Neyo can half-remember from before—is not one for fidgeting, not like before.</p><p> </p><p>It’s a purposeful move, a conscious decision, just like the slight backing off.</p><p> </p><p><em>Cornered animal</em>, Neyo thinks. As vicious and unforgiving of his own mistakes as he’s always been. Mistakes get you dead. You have to be better. If you aren’t better you’ll be punished, you’ll get hurt. You always have to be <em>better</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo breathes, uncurls his hands from the bloodless fists they’ve been clenched in.</p><p> </p><p>“Colt isn’t going to be on Coruscant long, you know.” Fox’s voice is even, not judgmental, but not letting Neyo get away with anything either.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo knows, he’d been counting on it actually.</p><p> </p><p>Fox blinks slow, knocks Neyo’s forehead with a single knuckle, “You’re imagining anger where there isn’t any you fucking idiot. You’re smarter than that, I know you are.”</p><p> </p><p><em>You don’t know me</em>, Neyo wants to snarl, doesn’t.</p><p> </p><p>He thinks Fox can read it anyways. There is a lot they don’t know about each other now, but sometimes it’s almost like they know each other like they used to again.</p><p> </p><p>Like a shaky holo-connection, clicking sometimes into high definition before fading out again, leaving you waiting for the next time it syncs up and you can understand what the person on the other end is saying. Neyo can vaguely recognize the shape of them, Colt, Fox, and Gree, who they were before hidden in who they are now.</p><p> </p><p>He wonders a little, what they see when they look at him.</p><p> </p><p>(The Shebs had feared losing their little CT to Priest, Edee had borne that pain, cut themselves on that loss and bled for it. Edee had closed ranks, had protected themselves from the gaping hole where Neyo used to be in different ways, it left it’s mark on all of them.)</p><p> </p><p>Fox is not hesitant, even now, presses his hand to Neyo’s forearm, holds there until Neyo relaxes, shifts until he’s leaning against the desk as well.</p><p> </p><p>Fox is an asshole, unrepentant and gleeful in it, but he doesn’t hurt, doesn’t rip into the weakness Neyo doesn’t mean to show him. And for that, Neyo is grateful.</p><p> </p><p>For that, he gives a response, though he thinks he maybe doesn’t have to. Not when Fox already knows.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t expect him, and the campaign was difficult. I removed myself from the situation as soon as I realized.”</p><p> </p><p>Fox nods, taps Neyo’s bracer with his own, “And he came up on your injured side, because you’re as obtuse as a fucking Seppie droid when it comes to injuries apparently. You’re both fucking idiots.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo doesn't mention Fox's injured side again, thinks about how they accidentally grew into something similar despite it all, and scoffs, “Shut up asshole, we didn’t even cause your guys any trouble, no one saw me punch him.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, but you’re still moping like a sad sack of bantha fodder instead of doing something about it.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo twists his fingers into Fox’s uninjured side, right between where the armour plating meets. “Fucker.”</p><p> </p><p>Fox grins, the same vicious smile Neyo’s seen reflected back at him in the visor’s of other <em>vode</em>, “I’m a productive fucker though, considering I’m doing about 10 jobs that <em>aren’t my job</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo hums, taps his bracer twice, “<em>Kot, </em>it’s hard work to run the Republic all by your lonesome.”</p><p> </p><p>“Go fuck yourself.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo laughs, “No thanks, I’d much rather have fun with someone else.”</p><p> </p><p>Fox grimaces, “Of course you went there.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo shrugs, feeling a little more solid, a little less like something hunted or haunted.</p><p> </p><p>“You said it, I just took it to the natural conclusion.”</p><p> </p><p>Fox scowls, no heat behind it, “You are actually a fucking Little.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo settles against Fox’s side for half a second, sits up, taps Fox’s side, “Let’s go Mr. Chancellor, we can’t have you dying on us. What will the Republic do then?”</p><p> </p><p>“Hopefully,” Fox grouses, standing near Neyo until Neyo can stand without his bad knee buckling, “they’ll finally do their own fucking paperwork.”</p><p> </p><p>Neyo laughs again, feels something settle a little in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>This, at least, is familiar to him. Maybe, soon, he’ll figure out how to fall back in step with them. Maybe Edee will figure out how they all fit together again, who they are now, bloodied and sharpened and grown, maybe it won’t tear them to pieces to do.</p><p> </p><p>Neyo leans against Fox, presses quickly into Keldabe.</p><p> </p><p>Fox huffs, relaxes, Neyo forgets sometimes that when Priest took him it had hurt them too.</p><p> </p><p>His comm chimes again as they make their way to medbay, and Neyo answers.</p><p> </p><p>(It’s a start.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>They make me!! Emotional!!! They need hugs :(</p><p>If you want to find me other places I have a <a href="https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com">writing tumblr</a> and a <a href="https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com">fandom tumblr</a> </p><p>Please come yell at me about Star Wars and DC</p></blockquote></div></div>
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